


Sweet Mercies

by Deannie



Series: One Day at Red Cliff [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2136777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buck’s hands are a mess, but he’s grinning ear to ear and I almost believe he’s going to tell me JD and Ezra are waiting for us by the fire—for a second. But while I sometimes do feel like Sisyphus, I won’t be Tantalus. I won’t hope for something that ain’t going to happen. <i>For the hc_bingo prompt: grief (wildcard square)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Mercies

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third story in Trifecta Bingo #1, which fulfills the "tune-in" achievement (all interconnected), the "Steadfast" achievement (all in the same fandom), and the "Serial Pleasures!" achievement (all TV fandom). Whew!

“VIN?”

I’m shouting for him before the rocks even stop falling on me. Before I can hear past the roar of the landslide.

”Vin, where the hell are you!?”

”Right here, Cowboy.”

He’s gritting out the words. Hurting bad. I try to put everything else out of my mind—Buck. Jesus, JD and Ezra… I don’t even know where Josiah was when that dynamite blew. I think Nathan might not’ve been too close; he said he was going to try to circle around to get behind McAuliffe. Bastard! When I find him—

”Chris?”

I pull myself together, yanking my leg out of the rocks that are burying it and heading for his voice. I run up against a wall real fast, adding more bruises to my collection and ringing my bell a little more firmly, then feel around until my hand slides against cotton.

”You okay?”

”Hell no, I’m not okay,” he barks in the blackness. “Got a hole in my shoulder, I’m buried under a cliff, and I lost my damn hat.”

I can’t help but smile, despite the thick rope of pain in his voice. “Sounds like you ain’t got much to gripe about, then.”

”Go to hell, Larabee.” He falls silent and I hear him sliding down to the ground. Figure it’s as good a place to be as any. There’s still a roar from beyond our little cave and the ground is still shaking, but it feels like, in here, we’re safe for now.

”JD and Ezra.”

Funny how he doesn’t make it a question. Guess we’re not going to have to pretend about it. “Yeah,” I reply.

”Fuck.”

That about says it. There’s a pain I’m all-too familiar with, waiting for me, but I turn my back on it and hope it don’t drown me before I get Vin out of here.

”Least Nathan wasn’t caught in it.”

I straighten up at that and hiss at the bruises all over my ribcage. God damn, we’re a mess. And buried in the dark…

”You sure?” I ask. Probably shouldn’t make that a question, either. I’m pretty sure myself. One good thing I can hold on to, I hope.

”Sure I’m sure,” he says quietly. “He and Goff were out in that same damn stand of trees as McAuliffe.” I can hear him run a hand through his hair, cursing at the pain it causes. “Shit, if I’d just gotten off a shot earlier.”

”Vin, don’t,” I tell him sharply. “Ain’t none of this your fault.”

He snorts. “Hell it ain’t. I should’ve known they’d be waiting.”

I have to chuckle at that. Them waiting wasn’t the problem here. “Should you’ve known they had a wagon full of dynamite?”

He sighs, an edge of acceptance to it. “Nah, I reckon not.”

”How bad are you bleeding?” I reach toward his voice, groping along him ‘til I get to his shoulder.

”Fuck, Larabee! Don’t!” He doesn’t try to wiggle out of my grasp, though, and I try to see the wound with my fingers. Bleeding pretty good.

”Can you hold a match if I light one?”

”Left arm is just fine, Cowboy,” he assures me.

Getting a look at it only confirms what I know. He’s been shot and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. We’re safe in a tiny dent in what used to be the cliff face, but safe in the dark, both beaten by rocks, one with a bullet in him ain’t exactly safe and _sound_. Still, we’re lucky Vin saw it when he did. Ain’t really a cave, so much, I guess, but there’s a little tunnel behind us I’ll investigate once I get him settled.

There’s just enough shards of wood from the shack that was near us that I can make a little fire. Ain’t gonna last us, and it’d smoke us to death if I tried to make it, but it’s enough to see by while I do what I can for him.

I yank hard on a piece of beat up of canvas buried in the rocks and grin at what I come up with. I’ll take this as a good sign.

”Found your hat,” I tell him, bringing it over to toss at his feet.

”Hell, things are looking up already.”

Figure he changes his mind real quick when I start pushing at that gunshot wound to stop the bleeding.

”Wishing I was stuck here with Ezra, ‘stead of you,” Vin grumbles, once I’ve wrapped his shoulder and got him propped against the wall. “Least he’s smart enough to carry his liquor on him.”

We both fall silent at that. God damn you, Standish, I curse, as that hole of loss I clawed my way out of three years ago calls to me again. God damn you and JD both.

Fire’s already dying.

”Reckon the horses are okay,” Vin says after a long minute, like he’s got to hold on to something positive. “Hell, Peso’s probably half way to home and pissed as hell at all the noise.”

I nod. Pony’ll wait until the dust dies down, then come on back. If she’s smart, Pal’ll stick with him, but she can be damn flighty sometimes. Prophet’s probably still standing right where he was put, and we better hope Washington and Lady hooked up with one of the others—those two ain’t got brains in their heads. And Chaucer? Hell, who knows what Chaucer’ll do. God damned loyal horse’ll probably be digging for his man as soon as he can get close.

I pray he don’t find him.

Fire burns, and dear God, I’ve seen that—I can’t even think about that now. Not now.

But dynamite? Dynamite takes someone you thought you knew and twists ‘em into something you can’t never reconcile with who the person was before. And it doesn’t have to kill to do it.

”Sure they went quick, Chris,” Vin whispers, reading my mind and sounding at the end of his rope.

”Get some rest.” I stand up, wanting to erase the memories of men who became something I couldn’t reconcile. I pick up a still-burning stick from the fire. “Gonna take a look around.”

He chuckles. “Shit, that won’t take long.”

Figure it won’t. But I’m still betting he’ll be asleep before I’m back.

 

The little tunnel ends about forty feet back in a pile of dirt and rocks and a long chimney that glows with noontime light and lets me know we ain’t gonna suffocate. Must go halfway up the cliff and I guess I should thank God it didn’t get closed off by the slide, but I ain’t up to thanking God for much today.

Maybe Buck’s okay. He was running for JD, like the damn fool big brother that he is, but he was far enough away maybe he just got blown off his feet? Maybe he’s digging for us now.

God help him, maybe he’s digging for JD.

I don’t even know exactly where Josiah was. I know he was running along the cliff face, trying to get around to meet up with Nathan. Maybe he found a cave to hole up in like we did. Maybe he and Nathan are digging. Maybe.

I look up at the chimney and try to decide whether I can climb it, and whether there’s any point. It’d mean leaving Vin on his own… He seems to be doing okay. Not sure about me, but I’m managing, even if I feel like someone stove my head half in.

Not sure there’s any reason to climb up there, though. If I got up and couldn’t get back down, Vin’d die in here eventually. If I got out and found six feet of rock between him and the outside, he’d still die. Like JD and Ezra, only slower.

I hope.

God damn pain is waiting on me, and I shove it away. I’m not doing this again. Let ‘em go, Larabee. Just… casualties of war.

It takes a few minutes for me to breathe again.

Figure I’ll dig from the inside, then. Might be a lost cause, but damn it, I’ve got to try to at least save someone.

 

He’s asleep and the fire’s ash by the time I walk back down the little tunnel. I use the barely-there light and a gentle hand to find him and settle on his left side. Reckon with my head pounding the way it is, I should get a little rest before I start digging, but the darkness just conjures up images I can’t stand to see.

JD ain’t even as old as I was when I went to war. Hell, Vin’s only a few years older than I was when I fought at Youngstown. Guess it all depends on the life you’ve lived, though, and both those boys have lived plenty. Didn’t think JD’d get to see his next birthday the first time I met him, but he’s grown into a hell of a man.

Shit.

Ezra was in the war. I remember being so surprised by that when I found out. He looked so young and put on such airs when I met him. Looked like a boy playing at being a big man, sometimes. Come to find out he never was a boy to begin with. Hell… Gonna have to find Maude once this is over. I reckon she might even be a little broke up he’s gone.

I have to do something, anything, to stop myself thinking, so I feel along the edge of the wall until I come to surface that’s dirt instead of stone. And I start digging.

I’m glad my gloves were on my belt when this all started, or I’d tear my hands to shreds. As it is, I’m exhausted by the time Vin’s voice registers for me. I’m pretty sure from the way he calls my name he’s been doing it a while.

”Chris!”

”I’m here, Vin,” I say, leaving the wall and stumbling back toward him. I’m drenched in sweat and it feels like an oven in here.

”Damn hot in here,” he mutters, reading my mind again. Used to scare the shit out of me, now I’m just glad he’s around to do it. “What time is it?”

I light a match and look at my watch. “Nearing five o’clock,” I say, before it hits me that Ezra gave me that damn watch. My hand shakes some with fatigue as I slide it back into my pocket to keep it safe.

”You find a way out yet?” he asks, like he knows I’m going to at some point. Don’t know when they all got to having so much faith in me. I ain’t nothing special.

”There’s a chimney in back,” I tell him. “Too high to climb.” Not exactly the truth, but I’m not leaving him here on his own. “Figured I’d just dig through in the front, until I can’t any more. Or until Buck digs through first.”

”Josiah’ll’ve made it,” he says, words slurring, hopefully with pain and not with blood loss. I grope toward his bad shoulder and he bats me away. “He was by the spring. Slide wouldn’t’ve gone that way.”

”Between ‘em, those two and Nathan should have us out in no time, then.” It’s a lie and he knows it is. But I suppose it could be true.

”I reckon.” Yeah. He knows.

”Think I’ll take a rest ‘fore I get back to digging,” I tell him, settling in next to him. I know my mind won’t rest for long, but I can rest my body for a few minutes anyway.

”Risked bringing the whole damn place down on themselves,” he says quietly. “A cold man who’d risk blowing up his own men.”

”Been done before, Vin,” I tell him, remembering a crazy-ass Southern Colonel and the scores of dead and maimed he left behind. Union _and_ Confederate. “I reckon it’ll be done again.”

”Sounds like you know from experience,” he replies. I know he won’t push me if I don’t talk, but right now, I’ll do anything to get the images out of my mind.

”During the war, before Buck and me met. Place called Youngstown in North Carolina.” Must have been beautiful in its day. Before the war came. “We were headed south, for Charleston eventually—at least that was the grand plan.” I close my eyes on the darkness, and explosions flare behind my lids. “The Confederate commander had ordered all the buildings wired with explosives. Once his men drew us into the town, they just started blowing the charges.”

”Blew his own men up, too?” he mutters, not like he can’t believe it, but like he wishes I was lying. Hell, so do I. “Damn, Chris.”

“Some of the civilians were still in the church. Hiding.”

I remember him telling me about how the Army treated the tribe he lived with when he was young. I wonder sometimes if he don’t have the selfsame hole of pain waiting for him every morning. Wonder how he side steps it on his way out of bed.

”Best get back to digging,” I say quietly, pulling myself to my feet.

I keep digging, cursing all the way. Keep getting half buried in the dirt I’m throwing behind me, but I can’t stop. Vin needs help. And I need to see daylight.

”Heard Ezra telling the kids a story a while back,” Vin calls out to me after a time. I don’t flinch at his name this time. Progress, I guess. Took a lot longer to stop flinch at Sarah and Adam’s. “Bout a king named Sisyphus. Doomed to roll a rock up a hill and watch it roll down again, over and over for eternity.” I can sense him grinning in the dark. “Reckon from the sound of the dirt falling into that hole you’re digging, you feel a little like him right about now.”

I can’t help but chuckle as I stop to take a quick rest. “I’m betting Ezra didn’t explain _why_ Sisyphus had to roll that rock, did he?”

”He was a bit vague on the reasons,” Vin agrees fondly. “Something about Hades not liking him so much.”

Trust Ezra… “Sisyphus was being punished for his trickery,” I explain. Remembering the big book of myths and stories my sister used to read us at night. “He was called ‘the craftiest of men’—“

”Yeah, that’s what Ezra called him.”

Huh. Wonder if he had the same book. I’m thinking Maude never read from it, though. I start digging again.

”When he died, Zeus—“

”That’s the king of the gods, right?” Vin asks.

”Yeah. Zeus ordered him chained in Hell. But when Death came to get him, he tricked Death into chaining himself up instead.”

Vin laughs and it loosens something in my gut and tightens something else in my heart. “Reckon that sounds just like Ezra.”

”Don’t it just.” A smile floats across my lips for a brief second before dying. “Can’t cheat Death forever, though,” I say, wishing you could—or at least one pain-in-the-ass card sharp could. “They made him roll that rock up that mountain forever, just to show him that he couldn’t win.”

Vin’s not laughing anymore.

My arms are already aching, but I know I’ve made a good few feet into the dirt. I can keep going. I have to. Buck’s already going to be taking JD’s death hard. I can’t give him anything else to mourn for. Ain’t fair to a man who’s put up with so damn much in the last few years.

”I should’ve had JD stay back and watch over the town.” Buck shouldn’t have had to lose him.

”JD ain’t a kid anymore, Chris, and you know it,” Vin chides me. “He got into this same as we all did. He knew what he risked every damn day of his life since he got here.”

I dig a little harder. “Ain’t gonna have any more of those days, though, is he?” I grate angrily.

When my hand goes through to air, for a second I can’t believe it, staring stupidly at the small hole of sunset in the rocks.

”Shit, Vin!” I call. “I’m through!”

”Well keep digging, then, cowboy!” he calls, an edge of hope to his voice.

It only takes a few minutes to widen the hole to get my whole hand out and I almost cry at the sound of someone else digging nearby.

”BUCK!?” I scream, feeling the vibration of the shout bounce off the rock around me. “NATHAN! JOSIAH? YOU OUT THERE!?”

”We’re here, Chris!”

I close my eyes. “Josiah’s out there,” I call back to Vin. And he said “we.”

I feel more hands reaching in to widen the hole. “Vin in there?” Josiah asks, worried and thrilled and thankful all at once.

”Rifle shot to the shoulder,” I tell him, as calmly as I can, so he’ll know not to worry. As the hole gets bigger, I see Buck’s face and grin tiredly at him. “Bound it up good, but it’s still in there. Ain’t got light to dig it out.”

”I wouldn’t let you dig a bullet out of my shoulder, Larabee!” Vin calls out to me. “Damn, I ain’t stupid.”

The three of us have dug down to waist height, and I look at them and sigh. Josiah looks terrible—bruised up good, and cradling his hand a bit. Something’s not right in his eyes, but I expect mine are the same.

Buck’s hands are a mess, but he’s grinning ear to ear and I almost believe he’s going to tell me JD and Ezra are waiting for us by the fire—for a second. But while I sometimes do feel like Sisyphus, I won’t be Tantalus. I won’t hope for something that ain’t going to happen.

Damn, Nathan’s nowhere to be seen. He wouldn’t’ve gone off after Goff—not without checking on the rest of us. He’d’ve known at least a few of us would survive. Which means Goff took him, and I don’t want to know what he plans to do with him.

Right now, all I want is Vin and Nathan safe and Goff dead.

We’ll bury our dead when it’s done.

 

Vin’s pissed as hell that we’re leaving him here, but he ain’t got a choice in the matter and he knows it. We need to move fast and we’ve only got two horses and two sound men.

Well, three if you count the crazy man digging in the dirt and praying for a miracle.

”It’s just going to be harder on him when he finds them,” I gripe as Josiah and I let the horses pick their way into the desert night toward the old mining camp. Pony came back on his own and like I thought, Prophet just stood there and watched the world fall down in front of him. Probably spent his time thinking it into a parable to tell the other horses.

I can’t believe Buck actually thinks he’ll find JD and Ezra alive. Even with what Josiah told me about how they were moving toward the rocks before the blast, it’d be a miracle if they made it to shelter. And a curse if they didn’t and lived.

”The Lord has been known to be merciful sometimes, Chris,” Josiah tells me. There’s an edge to his voice—like he’s trying to keep his own faith intact.

I remember Youngstown and the broken and the burning and the ones praying to be dead and spur Pony on.

“Be a mercy if they died quick.”

 

I look behind me at Nathan for the tenth time since we started back toward Red Cliff, to find him still staring straight ahead at nothing. Seems like his horse is just following mine at this point, because he’s sure not up to leading it. McAuliffe is silent and terrified on the mount behind him, and I can’t say I blame the man.

I’ve seen Nathan kill before—to save a friend. To save a stranger. He don’t do it often, because he’s good enough with a knife or a gun to put a man down and still have to patch him up later. He doesn’t like it but he knows it sometimes needs doing. I’ve never seen him _hurt_ a man before, though. Never seen him let revenge take him over so completely.

Almost makes me jealous.

When I get my hands on Goff, I may do the same damn thing to him and Josiah had better not stop me the way he stopped Nathan, though I’m damned glad he did. It’s bad enough what happened to JD and Ezra, but to see Nathan chained, manacled, driven from his own nature like that… Goff has too much to answer for.

JD’d stop me. He wouldn’t even have to try very hard; just give me that “do the right thing, Chris” look he had down pat. Kid could probably convince Ezra to go straight if he put his mind to it.

Wonder if he’s convincing Saint Peter to let him in right now….

The sun is bright, but not as hot as it usually is this time of year. Or maybe I just don’t feel it. I’m cold. It’s just past noon, and we’re heading toward the rise just this side of Red Cliff. I wonder if Buck’s given up yet. I’m hoping Vin’s got enough energy to help Buck a little until Josiah can get hold of him. I can’t be any help—never could be. I just can’t work up to feeling that much pain one more time. I won’t.

Josiah’s climbing the rise before me and stops at the edge, looking down.

”Ha ha! Hail Jesus!” he whoops. I nudge Pony a little faster, refusing to hear him right.

But he looks back at me with a grin a mile wide. “Mercies, Chris,” he says, almost joyfully, damn him. “Sweet mercies!”

I watch him thunder away toward the cliff as reach the peak of the ridge myself. Three men sitting in camp, a fourth strolling in from the woods, whooping an answer to Josiah’s call and watching the old man barrel down toward them.

Four men. All moving. Awake. Alive.

God damn.

God. Damn.

”Nathan!” I call, watching him look up at the tone of my voice. Hope flares there in his eyes, and I’m glad he’s got spirit enough left to let it in. Hell, maybe, so do I.

“Looks like you’re gonna have a couple more patients than we thought.”

 

Buck hasn’t said much to me since we came back. Vin said he’s pretty much avoiding him, too, which ain’t like Buck. He should be in my face, telling me I told you so. This is one of the few times I’d be more than happy to hear it, too.

I thought poor Nathan was going to pass out when JD stood up and waved at him as we came into camp. The kid is fine. A broken arm won’t keep him out of the fight for long. Ezra’ll take a little more doing. Nathan stared at him for the longest time, almost couldn’t touch him, like he was afraid Ezra’d disappear like a ghost.

His back is torn all to hell. Not deep, most of it, but Nathan said sometimes that’s even worse. Skin’s all sliced by splinters from the wagon. I did find something to thank the Lord for today, though: somehow, in all that hellfire, Ezra managed to come out of it with just a few burns up on his shoulders. Bad ones, but better than anybody thought they’d be.

”Luckiest damn bastard ever,” Nathan mutters, dropping to sit beside me as I watch Ezra sleep. Once Buck found the rest of the horses, Nathan got some laudanum down him and he’s finally resting easy. Was drunk as they could get him for Nathan to clean him up, but that just brought out the demons in his sleep. I wonder what a cannon man like him has lurking in his memories.

”Luckier than I expected this morning, that’s for damn sure,” I tell him quietly.

”Won’t be riding for a while, though.” He holds up a hand to stop the protest he knows I’m getting ready to give him. “Chaucer’ll get him home, if we take it slow, but it’s gonna hurt and he ain’t gonna want to do it again soon. Might take a couple of weeks before those burns heal enough to stop worrying about ‘em.”

I nod. I didn’t really plan for Ezra to mount up with us anyway. Reckon he’s been through enough.

”How about JD?” He ain’t riding with us either, and damned if he ain’t more pissed off about it than I thought he’d be. Was all-fired to give Goff hell, too—no “do the right thing, Chris,” look.

Damned if I don’t feel like I need to, anyway. Goff’s best left to the hangman. If he don’t fight too hard.

”He’s fine.” Nathan grins in the coming night. “Hell, he’s JD. Broken arm ain’t gonna set him back none. Head’ll keep him hurting for a few days yet, though.”

”I’m sending him back to town with you. He can look after things.”

Nathan pauses, weighing everything. “I still don’t like you all going after Goff without me, but I know where I’m needed.” He looks over at Vin and beyond him to McAuliffe, who still won’t let him near. Josiah’s been doing all the doctoring there, but I need him with me. “Be good to have JD there—I’m gonna have my hands full with Vin and Ezra… and McAuliffe….” He sighs. “Wondering if we might want to drop him off with Doc Parson over in Myer Gulch.”

I shake my head. “Sheriff there’s an idiot. McAuliffe gets away and we gotta do this all over again.”

He shifts uneasily. “He ain’t gonna take to me doctoring him.”

I grin. Bastard deserves what he got. “Then he probably ain’t gonna walk again. If he lives.”

Nathan sighs. “No. I reckon not.” He shakes his head and I know this’ll be a talk he has with Josiah. Father Confessor and best friend all in one, Josiah’ll sort this out. Probably with some sort of weird parable that don’t make no sense to anyone but him.

”Vin’s doing good,” he tells me. “Gonna have a hell of a time keeping him in the clinic, but I guess that might be a good thing—maybe he and JD can split peacekeeping duties.”

Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen, but I’m going to leave that to Vin to sort out.

He stands up. “Gonna check on Vin once more before I call it a night. You all riding at dawn, yeah?”

I nod, watching Ezra breathe and hearing Buck harass JD as the kid beds down. Ezra’s hat is right next to his head. Wonder how the hell Buck found it.

I wonder how he found _them_.

Buck sees JD off to sleep, patting the kid’s shoulder with absent affection before his eyes come up and meet mine.

Maybe he was just waiting for the right time to tear into me.

He moseys over and takes a seat next to me, staring into the fire for a long time. As I figured, Josiah and Nathan are talking quietly over the other edge of camp.

”Been waiting on an ‘I told you so,’ Buck,” I finally say, when the silence gets to be too much.

”Well, now, I was going to,” he begins in that amused carefree way that’s anything but. “But then I decided I was too damn pissed at you to look at your ugly face.”

”Guess I deserve that,” I mutter. He’s mad. Madder than I’ve seen him since Sarah and Adam….

”Damn right you do, Chris!” He’s yelling at me without raising his voice, though I figure Vin can hear him clearly. “You don’t just walk off and leave men like that! Hell, what got into you? I seen you drag men— _those_ men—out of a firefight without the least regard for your safety. I ain’t seen you turn your back on them like that before, and you damn well better not ever again!”

I stare at Ezra’s hat for a long moment as Buck heaves in anger. It needs cleaning. Stitching, too.

”Sometimes it’s better if a man dies without knowing exactly how much pain he can stand, Buck,” I say finally. If he’d been in Youngstown, he’d understand.

”You talking about them,” he asks, too damn shrewd for his own good. “Or _you_?”

”I’ve seen men blown apart before, Buck,” I admit, bile choking me. “I couldn’t do it again. Some things are best left buried.”

“Not friends, Larabee,” he hisses quietly. “Not _family_.” He stands, looking over at JD in the darkness. “You have enough ghosts chasing you, Chris,” he murmurs. “Don’t let any of us to add to ‘em.”

I let him leave, feeling a cold seep in in his wake.

 _Family_. Hell. Took me three years to start breathing again after Sarah and Adam. And these men did that—pulled me kicking and screaming.

”Guess you all _are_ family at that,” I whisper, rising to head for my own bedroll.

”Hell, Cowboy,” Vin murmurs sleepily as I bed down near him. “Only took you three years to figure that out, huh?”

I smile in the darkness, surrounded by brothers.

Sarah always said I was a slow learner.

* * * * * * *  
The End


End file.
